Miami, FIU Officials Discuss Data’s Role in Local Government

Earlier this week, city of Miami and Florida International University officials discussed how data is being used within local government during Government Technology’s* Southern Florida Digital Government Summit Oct. 28.

Panel moderator and St. Lucie County CIO Carrie Mast led the discussion with Miami's Chief Data Officer Cheriene Floyd and Lillian Abreu, assistant director and research associate with the Lillian Lodge Kopenhaver Center for the Advancement of Women in Communication at Florida International University.

Here are some key takeaways from the discussion:

Miami is formalizing its data sharing processes. “We’re in the process of operationalizing and formalizing a data sharing agreement that’s part of a larger data governance structure,” Floyd said. “It’s not that we hadn’t done that before; we just didn’t write it down and commit to it before.”

The lack of a formal agreement often meant that efforts dwindled and went away as their champions moved on to other roles, Floyd explained.

“The idea is as we deal with use cases that are a priority for us, we’re deciding what data sharing should look like and making sure that our data governance model is informed by that,” Floyd said. “I’m thinking about data sharing on a number of levels internally, from department to department. Formalizing that is needed, and it’s a challenge even when you’re right next door, so to speak, from your business partner.”

Once the city formalizes this structure internally, Floyd hopes to work with county partners and surrounding cities to scale up to a regional level.

Invest in your data gym. The concept of a data gym, which Floyd adopted from a colleague, can be used to define what an IT department looks like.

“Our IT departments are the data custodians, they are responsible for managing the gym. Our business partners are our data owners, and they need to show up and get in shape. The trainers are data stewards, and it’s not always so structured, but the idea is clearly around roles,” Floyd said.

From a city perspective, Floyd wants to expand Miami’s data gym by hiring a new data scientist.

“I’m looking for a data scientist right now that would be one of five folks,” Floyd said. “I expect my data scientists to be able to speak tech and speak latest terms.”

More specifically, the incumbent must work with stakeholders to design, implement and administer data strategies; assess the city’s current data sources; recommend and co-design data architecture; extract and clean data; provide recommendations on data governance; and create insightful analytics, visuals and dashboards to inform decision-makers, the job posting states. The deadline to apply is Nov. 15 at 5 p.m.

General advice from the panelists. Panelists also discussed executive leadership’s role in supporting a data sharing culture within their organizations and how to handle the legal side of the equation.

“That messaging has to come from the top. I think executives need to understand when it comes to data sharing that there are people like me who are the guardians of that knowledge; we’re not going to share it unless I know that you have an understanding of the importance of that data,” Abreu said.

“Create a path forward where there’s clarity for sure. When it comes to working with legal — I’m actually having a tough time with that right now — but in the past, it was really helpful to me to know what their legal fatal flaws were,” Floyd added.

For Floyd, the path forward includes an effort to build out expertise in legal with dedicated staff to help shape the data sharing template. The main challenge there is engaging with the city's busy legal department.

Furthermore, Floyd said, “It would be super helpful for us as cities and counties to have a data sharing view that we all like to work with so that we might share data with each other, but ... especially in the city of Miami, engaging legal is a challenge because they are so busy," Floyd said.

*The Southern Florida Digital Government Summit is presented by Government Technology, a publication of e.Republic, Industry Insider — Florida’s parent company.